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The View from My Kitchen

Benvenuti! I hope you enjoy il panorama dalla mia cucina Italiana -- "the view from my Italian kitchen,"-- where I indulge my passion for Italian food and cooking. From here, I share some thoughts and ideas on food, as well as recipes and restaurant reviews, notes on travel, and a few garnishes from a lifetime in the entertainment industry.

You can help by leaving comments on posts and by becoming a follower. More than a hundred thousand people all over the world have viewed the blog and that's great. But every great leader needs followers and if I am ever to achieve my goal of becoming the next great leader of the Italian culinary world :-) I need followers! I promise, I'm not going to spam anybody. I'd just like to know who's out there and what your thoughts are on what I'm doing.

Grazie mille!

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Boston Restaurant Exposes Yelp Thugs

A Good Idea Gone Horribly Wrong

It's hard to type while applauding, but
that's what I'm doing right now. I am wildly cheering for Boston
restaurateur Michael Scelfo and his “Alden & Harlow” eatery.
No, I don't know the guy and I've never eaten at his restaurant –
although next time I'm in Boston, I will. Rather, I am applauding the
act of his standing up to and publicly exposing a couple of Yelp
thugs.

Yelp is a good idea gone horribly
wrong. On the surface, the concept of a forum wherein the “common
man” has a voice and can express his opinion is a noble one.
Unfortunately, it does not take into account the preponderance of
rude, ignorant, selfish, entitled idiots one finds buried beneath the
veneer of altruism contained in Yelp's mission statement: "To connect
people with great local businesses."

Yelp proudly proclaims that “Yelpers”
have written more than seventy-one million local reviews. The basic
problem with that statement hearkens back to the old adage that says
“opinions are like a**holes; everybody has one.” And in the case
of Yelp and its imitators, far too many of the users expressing their
opinions are a**holes.

Case in point: a couple of young
females – “ladies” probably stretches the definition – showed
up at Alden & Harlow with no reservations. They proceeded to seat
themselves, to berate and insult the staff, to loudly proclaim that
they were not tipping because of the poor service, and then to refuse
to leave when asked to do so. And, of course, they played the trump
card – threatening to give the establishment a bad Yelp review.

You get the picture? These are jerks.
They went into the place with the intention of causing trouble and
then blackmailing their way out of it. And in most cases they would
have been successful because many small, local restaurant owners are
thoroughly cowed by the threat of a bad social media review. Word of
mouth is the bread and butter of their advertising and people
bad-mouthing them can put them out of business. And Yelp thugs have
figured that out and know how to play it to their best advantage. I
mean, come on! The difference between Yelp et.al. and protection
rackets is minimal. What's the difference between a hulking goon in
an ill-fitting suit holding a club and saying “pay up or I'll break
your kneecaps” and a stylishly-dressed moron with a cellphone
saying “give me what I want or I'll put you out of business”?

I've never thought much of social media
review sites, but my contempt reached a tipping point a few years ago
when I found this scathing review of a local Italian place posted on
one of them: “This is absolutely the worst Italian food I have
ever had in my life. It was nothing but over priced boxed mixes with
some chewy, obviously frozen bagged seafood on top. It literally
disgusted me. If you value your hard earned money and your stomach I
would keep on driving right past this place.” In
the first place, it's poorly written – “if you
value.......I would
keep on driving.” Really? In the second place, it's non-specific.
What dish particularly “disgusted” you? Or did you have a general
sampling of everything on the menu and found it all to be “the
worst Italian food”? And did you actually see “boxed
mixes” and “bagged seafood” being used? Or did it just taste
like that to you?
There's a difference.

I had
eaten at the place myself and knew the opposite to be true. It was a
small, family owned and operated business, started by mom and pop
and now run by the kids, all of whom are right off the boat from
Italy. I knew their food was fresh, delicious, and as authentic as
American tastes would allow. I'd seen their kitchen and watched
everything being prepared from scratch. There wasn't better Italian
food to be had within a hundred miles. No, this was just a hack job
written by somebody who wanted to hurt the business. I took it upon
myself to go online and rebut this scurrilous billingsgate, pointing
out the obvious lies and flaws therein and concluding with: This
is absolutely some of the best Italian food I have ever had in my
life. It is nothing but high-quality, fresh ingredients deliciously
prepared in a wonderful Italian family tradition. It literally
delights me. If you value your hard-earned money and your stomach,
you'll drive directly to this place, and you'll do it often.

But I gotta admit, Michael Scelfo did
me one better: he posted a picture of the thugs who tried to dun his
establishment on Instagram, along with a description of their
execrable behavior that included the hashtag
“#wedontnegotiatewithyelpers.” I. Love. It!! “We don't
negotiate with Yelpers” should be posted large on the front door of
every restaurant in the country.

Scelfo has since written that,
regardless of the picture being taken down,
“#wedontnegotiatewithyelpers stands true." And he says, "I
would encourage more people to be responsible with [Yelp].” Can I
get an “amen” from the choir, brothers and sisters?!

Scelfo and I aren't alone in the
outrage department. Botto Bistro in Richmond, California got a lot of
mileage out of offering discounts to patrons who would give them
“bad” reviews in the hope that their “star” rating would sink
low enough to remove them from Yelp's radar entirely.

Yelp and its ilk are a bad joke badly
told. No matter how benign the intention, the system is
intrinsically broken and it is being abused by thugs every day to the
detriment of the “great local businesses” it was supposedly
designed to help. And most people seem to know it. Here are a few random comments I pulled from the 'net: “Yelp is less than
useless. They're shady and people abuse the hell out of how much
power Yelp has over small businesses. Burger King doesn't give a s**t
if a location has bad Yelp reviews, but it can kill a small family
owned restaurant.” Or, “One of the things that makes Yelp so
uneven is that it allows for anonymity of the reviewer. Unlike
professional reviews (where the reviewer might be a secret, but still
is accountable to a readership and probably a publisher) with Yelp
there's no accountability at all. It's total crap.” And, “Anything
that can make Yelp useless, I'm behind 100%.”

But let's face it, Yelp is a culturally
entrenched behemoth and it's not going anywhere. Curmudgeons like me
and a handful of rebels at places like Alden & Harlow and Botto
Bistro can quixotically tilt at windmills all day long and it's not
going to make a bit of difference other than, perhaps, making us feel
a little better for having “done something.” So instead of
saying, “don't use Yelp,” – because I know you're going to
anyway, – let me echo Michael Scelfo and say, “please use Yelp –
and other similar sites – responsibly.” As a consumer, develop a
“BS meter” and learn how to figure out when the system is being
gamed. There are a lot of tells you can spot in a fake review. I've
written about them and there are a ton of articles on the subject
available online. Don't be a part of destroying somebody's livelihood
just because some moron with an ax to grind tells you to. And if
you're one of the ax-grinding morons, shame on you. I hope your
Mama's proud and that you can live with yourself, because it's likely
that no one else wants to live with you.

Better yet, exercise some judgment and
common sense. You want to know if a place is good? Ask a local. I do
it all the time. Last time I was in Boston, I didn't “Yelp”. I
was in a little North End bottega and asked the clerk, “where's a
good place for lunch?” And her recommendation was wonderful. Or you
can consult an expert. Read a newspaper or magazine review. Check out
a copy of a guide like the one published by Zagat. The people who eat
for a living are much more qualified to guide you to a good place
than some idiot who trashes a restaurant because he didn't like the
way the waiter smiled.

Just remember that adage about opinions
and a**holes the next time you're tempted to rely on Yelp. And then
think seriously about what you get out of an a**hole before you make
a choice.

1 comment:

Ohh, I never heard of this before. My favorite are best Boston venues and restaurants. These are really great and I always visit that place when I am in mood for a party. So, I m sorry, I cannot help you.

Who Am I (and Why Should You Care)?

I've been around long enough to know a little bit about a lot of things. That said, there are a couple of things I know a little bit more about; food and entertainment.

I've been cooking since I was a kid -- a very long time, indeed -- and I've spent most of my adult life in the entertainment industry.

I've been writing about one or the other of these topics since the '80s, and I have been published in numerous magazines and newspapers over the years. I also spent the better part of two decades behind a microphone as the host of my own radio talk show.

Does all of this make me an expert? Nah! But I'm certainly entitled to my opinion -- and so are you! :-)